Bought this cheap in March. Owner used it once! It needed a little help.

One good point was it already had 15" rims and tires that are the same pattern and size as my Wrangler.

The Warden named it 'Rosebud'.

I call it Pa's Pad When Ma's Mad!

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First day home, (The black storage box was not included.)

PO had painted spar varnish over bare plywood, THEN applied the stain! And skinned the top with interior padded vinyl wall paneling, (also stained later), and wondered why the roof suddenly had 'cancer' and the color came off after a rain!

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Here's the outside after some sanding

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The outer roof ply had highs and lows, so I ran strips along the profile and used a metal straight edge to find the right curves, build up areas, etc.

The PO didn't make both sides even, didn't make a template or cut both sheets at the same time. The farther I got, I don't think he owned a ruler! Nothing was square or even.

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Holes for a fan and front polycarbonate window.

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Ripped the old skin off and reskinned it with some 1/8" 'utility' ply/door skin from Home Depot! (Yeah, I'm cheap, and marine ply/mdo is non existent where I live.)

Stained it red mahogany, then applied Spar Urethane.

Added some trim for appearance and painted the frame, fenders and rims black. The radius 'trim' is vinyl corner moulding from HD, and faux 'wood grained'. Same method I use for custom painting on Harleys, etc.

(When I'm finally done working out the bugs and learning how to ''Tailgate the Teardrop Way', I may add some more faux graphics, like these airbrushed 'lights' I did on a 'Jeep' sand rail. Yep, just a little paint!

Did some more minor mods and personal alterations, and now hopefully have a decent starter offroad TD, with the same basic interior framework. This foray into TDs didn't originally include woodworking, since I can cut a board 3 times and it's still too short! But necessity took over.

I built a complete new galley hatch w/ hurricane hinge.

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Last edited by Tophog on Tue Jun 26, 2018 11:40 am, edited 19 times in total.

Regarding the fenders, I'll find out. Currently running three of the five leafs of 1250# springs. I can always add the others back. And I have plenty of scrap metal to make different fender mounts. They're just bolted on.

I got it for ease of camping instead of pitching a tent (too old for that anymore), not for rock crawling or overland adventures. Mostly just mild trails that my GMC Sierra 4x4 is too fat for.

It's almost too high for my needs, but I can fix that later. I need to make a few trips to figure out the best set up.

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Before last year, I wasn't aware that tears were even still popular! Saw one at the dunes and figured I'd give one a try.

Bob

Last edited by Tophog on Tue Jun 26, 2018 11:35 am, edited 1 time in total.